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Ultra-important people can get State Highway Patrol escorts, but for some vehicles traveling
through the state, they’re required.

Ohio issues thousands of permits every year for oversize truck loads that must be accompanied by
at least one trooper. However, the criteria for deciding whether a load needs a patrol escort or a
private convoy can be fuzzy.

State law doesn’t outline specific dimensions or weight ranges to determine when troopers are
needed to accompany a load. Instead, it allows the Ohio Department of Transportation director to
decide, spokesman Steve Faulkner wrote in an email. “Whenever there is a need for traffic control
... troopers may be assigned as a condition of the permit.”

Last year, troopers were assigned 3,690 times, compared with 3,637 escorts in 2011. The permits
had dipped to 2,371 in 2010, during the economic downturn.

Last year’s escorts represent about 1.4 percent of all over-dimensioned permits issued.

When trucking companies apply for permits, they submit information about the loads and preferred
routes. State engineers then determine how the load will need to cross bridges and whether state
troopers are needed to stop traffic, said Tom Gallagher, the operations manager at Diamond Heavy
Haul Inc., based in Shandon in southwestern Ohio.

Diamond requires a highway-patrol escort for about 90 percent of the loads it carries through
Ohio, Gallagher said. The company carries stamping presses for the auto industry and turbine parts
for oil and gas companies, and transports loads that weigh more than 400,000 pounds.

Gallagher said the highway patrol wants to ensure public safety is taken into consideration on a
move and that the truck has the time it needs to slow down on certain bridges.

Companies must work with individual highway-patrol posts to hire off-duty troopers, said patrol
spokeswoman Lt. Anne Ralston. Troopers are paid a special rate of $39.50 an hour. The companies
also must pay the post $19 an hour for cruisers.

Statewide, more than $1.1 million was billed in fiscal 2012 for all off-duty use of patrol
vehicles. The state does not track how much of that money comes from oversize-truck escorts,
Ralston said.

Gallagher said his company is adept at predicting when and how many escorts it will need and
builds the cost into customer estimates.

Trucking companies say Ohio is not unusual in requiring escorts.

“It is more predominant east of the Mississippi (River) than it is west of the Mississippi,”
said Todd Potter, the owner of TJ Potter Trucking in Minnesota. “Out in western states, you tend to
be in more-open country — not as congested — so it’s less restrictive out there.”